DOI: 10.54888/slh.2021.33.92.111
SIGNALS OF METAPRAGMATIC AWARENESS IN INTERNET-MEDIATED DISCOURSES
KRISZTINA LACZKÓ ELTE Eötvös Loránd University
laczko.krisztina@btk.elte.hu https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7708-4108
Abstract
This paper offers an investigation of signals of metapragmatic awareness on the basis of the background assumptions of functional pragmatics. In this framework, metapragmatic awareness means the reflexive at- titudes of discourse participants to various linguistic constructions and to the cognitive processes and socio- cultural expectations related to them. By employing a variety of metapragmatic signals, speakers can reflect on their own or their interlocutors’ current activity as message senders and/or addressees, or that of third parties, as well as on the organization of the discourse. The paper focuses on the types of metapragmatic signals. The empirical material is provided by two genres of computer-mediated Hungarian communication:
thematically unrestricted and thematically restricted topics. As a result of an analysis of two connected samples of 200 and 500 contributions, respectively, fourteen types of metapragmatic signals have been differentiated, depending on what the given reflections are aimed at, and proportions of their types have been compared across the two samples. The analysis confirmed the claim that metapragmatic signals operate in narrative discourses as background items and reflect on the organization of the referential scene in the largest number of cases, whereas in spontaneous written conversations, they are far more in the foreground of attention and tend to refer to some aspect of the shared scene of attention.
Keywords: metapragmatic awareness, types of metapragmatic signals, internet-mediated discourse, func- tional pragmatics
1. Introduction1
The study examines the signals of metapragmatic awareness in internet-mediated discourses (cf.
Laczkó–Tátrai 2015a) starting from the background assumptions of functional cognitive pragmatics, using the model of intersubjective context and joint attentional scene (Verschueren 1999, 2004;
Croft 2009; Tátrai 2017). In this context metapragmatic awareness means that participants in the discourse are able to display a reflexive attitude to linguistic constructions and the related cognitive processes and sociocultural expectations. Using various metapragmatic signals, speakers can reflect on their own, the recipient’s or other third persons’ speech and recipient activities, as well as the organization of the discourse. There is a fundamentally iconic relationship between the extent and elaboration of metapragmatic signals and the degree of metapragmatic awareness: the more ex- tensive and semantically elaborated the metapragmatic signals, the greater the degree of meta- pragmatic awareness.
The focus of the study is on different linguistic realizations of a reflexive attitude towards the joint attentional scene and the referencial scene. The empirical study is provided by two Hungarian computer-mediated genres: the so-called thematically non-restricted topic (http://forum.index.hu/Ar- ticle/showArticle?t=9157953&la=134947965, daily written spontaneous polylogical conversation) and the thematically restricted topic (http: //forum.index.hu/Article/showArticle? t = 9017476 & la
1 An extended version of the lecture given at the 2021 IPrA conference.
ISSN 2732-1142
= 125481821, storytelling in the form of a polylogue). I manually annotated the linguistic realizations relating to the formation and reception of the utterances and to the referencial scene in two coherent samples of 200 and 500 posts, respectively. In the analyses, I focused on qualitative characteristics, and I used quantitative aspects to indicate the proportions characteristic of discourse types.
The research questions are as follows. 1. What types of metapragmatic signals reflecting in- tersubjective meaning construction can be distinguished which show strong degrees in their scope and semantic elaboration (the gradation presupposes scalarity: from utterences containing anchored verbal and cognitive verbs to desemantised discourse markers)? 2. What common and different fea- tures do the two samples representing the two different subtypes of a given genre (spontaneous and informal everyday discourse and more construed storytelling) contain, and what genre-specific characteristics can be observed?
According to my preliminary assumptions, the presence of metapragmatic signals with charac- teristic differences in elaboration and structural pattern can be considered a strong genre-specific feature in both samples. In spontaneous informal discourses, they appear more desemantized, according to the spontaneity of the discourse, following the spoken language pattern, especially in the first part of the utterances, for example, to indicate turn-taking in the discourse. In the more planned dis- courses, we find more linguistically elaborated realizations, in a specific arrangement, at the beginning and at the end of the texts, but also as part of the direction of attention during the discourse.
These studies aim to contribute to a more consistent description and understanding of the genre-specific functioning of internet-mediated discourses within the issue of metapragmatic awareness.
The structure of the study is as follows. First, I describe the most important features of func- tional cognitive pragmatics (2.), and then I define the approach to metapragmatic awareness within this theoretical framework (3.). This is followed by an outline of the material and methods of the two empirical analyzes (4.), after which I present the results with a focus on the functional groups of the metapragmatic markers (5.), and a comparison of the two samples (6.) before the summary (7.) closes the study.
2. The model of the functional cognitive pragmatics
Functional cognitive linguistics includes various models that have a fruitful discourse with each other. Their common feature is that they emphasize the non-formal nature of language, in these models grammar is not interpreted as an autonomous system, but from the point of view of speech activity, with an essential role attributed to cognitive processes (cf. eg. Croft–Cruse 2004; Geeraerts–
Cuycens eds. 2007; Evans–Poursel eds. 2009; Kövecses–Benczes 2010; Tolcsvai Nagy 2013;
Tolcsvai Nagy ed. 2017). Thus, the functioning of the elements of the language system is presented from the point of view of the current speaker, starting from their natural discursive medium, em- phasizing their role in the formation of dynamic meaning. (Tolcsvai Nagy 2010: 11–3). In categori- zation operations, prototype theory is the starting point (cf. Rosch 1977). At the same time, these models differ partly in their questions and approaches, allowing for, among other things, the grasp of language-specific features, methodologies that fit the theoretical framework but also take into account cross-linguistic differences, since the semantic structure is not universal but is largely based on language-specific, conventional representations, its relation to the knowledge structure is relative. In the recent decades, several theoretical research studies, mainly due to certain socio- psychological and pragmatic insights, have focused on the social (interactional and intersubjec- tive) basis of linguistic cognition and its consequences in the functional cognitive descriptions (see eg. Sinha 1999, 2009; Tomasello 2002, 2003, 2011; Croft 2009). This social cognitive starting point can be fruitfully combined with the pragmatic point of view, which lets the cognitive and sociocul- tural conditions of language use be seen together in relation to each other, describes language use as a social cognitive activity, and puts the problem of context-dependent, dynamic meaning construc- tion into focus (see Verschueren 1999; Sandra et al. eds. 2009; Tátrai 2011, 2013, 2017).
In the Hungarian literature, Szilárd Tátrai developed a dynamic model to describe the process of context-dependent, dynamic meaning construction (cf. Tátrai 2011, 2017). The basic point of this model is that the discourses of the ongoing process, which are realized as a common atten- tional scene, provide a frame (see Tomasello 2002; Sinha 2005). Discourses, whether they are every- day conversations or literary texts, are generally characterized by the fact that their participants interact with each other in the medium of a natural language (or languages) and, by directing or following the other’s attention, create referencial scenes with which they aim at adaptively satisfying their communicative needs (cf. Verschueren 1999; Verschueren–Brisard 2009). The joint atten- tional scene is thus an essential condition for symbolic linguistic communication, participation in it is an intersubjective human activity in which it is possible to direct the other’s attention to the things and events of the world (the referencial scene) and thus to influence her mental orientation (attention, understanding) (for details see Tátrai 2011: 29–35). Linguistic symbols thus create dif- ferent possibilities for the conceptual construction of world experiences (see Langacker 2008: 55–89;
Verhagen 2007). On the one hand, linguistic symbols represent conceptually differently construed experiences, and on the other hand, they initiate different conceptual constructions of experiences (see Sinha 1999, 2005).
The construal and understanding of referencial scenes in narrative discourses or spontaneous conversations is fundamentally influenced by which of the participants in the discourse directs the conceptual construction of experiences, the processing of the referencial scene, i.e. who deter- mines how and from where the events of the referencial scene are represented. Accordingly, the fundamental question is where and how the conceptually processable physical and social world of the participants of the referencial scene is constructed, in which their actions and happenings take place, and their mental world, in which their active conscious processes take place (see Tátrai 2011: 171–89; Bruner 1986: 14). In this study, however, the central question is fundamentally not at what and how our attention is directed when we try to understand the various referencial scenes, but how all of this can become the subject of metapragmatic reflection.
3. The concept of metapragmatic awareness
The concept of metapragmatic awareness refers to the reflexive attitude of the participants of the discourse towards the linguistic activity and the dynamic meaning construction that takes place in its medium (for details see Versucheren 1999; Tátrai 2011: 119–25; 2017: 1045–53). This is be- cause the persons who are just expressing themselves can reflect on their own, the recipient’s or another person’s communicative activities; moreover, they can also reflect on the current discourse itself and its organization. This means that the participants are able to display a reflexive attitude to various linguistic representations and the social cognitive processes and sociocultural expecta- tions associated with them. There are observable linguistic traces of metapragmatic awareness that are called metapragmatic signals. The semantic elaboration of metapragmatic signals shows an iconic correlation with the degree of awareness, since the greater semantic elaboration of meta- pragmatic reflections testifies to a greater degree of metapragmatic awareness of the speaker. At the same time, metapragmatic awareness does not simply mean the use of linguistic signals but rather also the different degrees of reflexive attitude of the participants towards their common linguistic activity, the dynamic meaning construction, to which the speaker draws attention with these signals.
Thus, metapragmatic awareness is always present in language use, but its extent can vary considerably and it can also show a strong correlation with the type of the discourse. Presumably, not only is the degree of metapragmatic awareness subject to differences concerning characteristics of the discourse type and genre, but also the many types of linguistic signals expressing reflexivity are arranged in various patterns. This is because the linguistic form of metapragmatic reflections can be realized in many ways, they can be extremely diverse both in terms of their function and the degree of their semantic elaboration, as well as in terms of their structure and scope. From seman- tically and linguistically elaborated signals (e.g. let's pause for a moment and take a closer look at
this fact; I'll get to the most important point in what follows) to desemantized discourse markers (so, well), the scale can even remain implicit, and it can be grasped along a kind of continuum (cf.
Versucheren 1999: 188; Kuna–Hámori 2019: 219). Furthermore, metapragmatic awareness shows complex realizations not only formally but also functionally: it can reflect on the activity of attention control (the speaker’s reflections may relate to his/her own language activity, the control of the recipient’s attention, which also includes manifestations of his/her mental and emotional views and states, his/her own potential attention and vica versa: also to the recipient’s potential attention and language activity), on the aiding of comprehension, and in the meantime metapragmatic signals can be realised as contextualisation introductions. Metapragmatic signals can be used to construct the referencial scene: the processing and articulation of the discourse, which promotes the recipi- ent’s comprehension processes during the construction of meaning, or the linguistic-stylistic as- pects of the discourse. Language users take advantage of these opportunities in many ways (cf.
Kuna–Hámori 2019: 219): they can be various cognitive goals, such as efforts to arrange the pro- ceeding of the discourse, such as efforts to direct attention, reinforcement, clarification, elimination of misunderstandings, and social goals such as courtesy, face protection (cf. Domonkosi 2019), impression and manipulation (cf. Hámori 2008).
In the following two case studies, I analyze the function-types of metapragmatic signals with the help of two Internet-mediated discourse genres, using a top-down method: that is, I have listed and grouped the linguistic realizations of metapragmatic awareness by reviewing selected sample texts.
4. Material and method
For the analysis, I chose two types of Internet-mediated discourse representing spontaneous writing:
the so-called thematically unrestricted and the thematically restricted topic. The first is titled The Purple Mothers’ Philosophic Topic (PM), the second is The Story of My Humiliation (SH), both of which can be found on the Index Forum and contain multi-year, day-to-day discourses.2 The basic features of computer-mediated Internet discourses can be summarized as follows: they consist of several interconnected attention activities, always with several participants, i.e. they are polylogic and spontaneous to different degrees, the interaction is indirect, the participants are not present in the discourse in the same space and at the same time due to the physical realization of the dis- course (computer), genre expectations are codified to a lesser extent. The first is the so-called thematically unrestricted topic (PM): a polylogue that can be broken into networked sequences, characterized by a higher degree of multi-round sequences and openness, as well as a greater degree of spontaneity.3 The second is the so-called thematically restricted topic (SH): it is also a polylogue, which in our case is organized around the act of storytelling, the essential element is the creation of narratives, characterized by a greater degree of planning in text construction. Both topics are characterized by the fact that participants mostly do not know each other at all or only a little, many do not meet in the real world, yet they have relatively less shared knowledge of each other (gender, age, social status, etc.), which shows stronger knowledge patterns over time, especially as dis- course progresses – this is the case mainly for PM. Participants’ actions during the joint attentional scene are clearer and more circumscribed because of the vehicle than in the real world (they write or read on a computer). The linguistic explanation does not exceed what is considered necessary by the participants. Sampling was developed as follows:
The PM sample from March 2013 contains 500 consecutive posts (that’s 19,647 text words and 131,803 keystrokes), with 14 members participating in the discourse, intellectual women between the ages of 30 and 50, with a common interest.
2 Purple Mothers: http://forum.index.hu/Article/showArticle?t=9017476&la=125481821; The Story of my Humilia- tion: http://forum.index.hu/Article/showArticle?t=9017476&la=125483459.
3 Spontaneity in this sense can be interpreted as the property of spontaneous writing on the Internet (cf. Petykó 2011). According to my knowledge, there is no analysis of the characteristic linguistic differences between sponta- neous speaking and spontaneous writing.
The SH sample is from December 2013 to January 2014, contains 200 stories (28,131 text words, 187,409 keystrokes), 19 participants can be listed in the discourse, their age cannot be specified precisely, men and women mixed. In this case, I highlighted narratives from the whole discourse in the sample, so unlike PM, it is not a continuus text, I did not take into account sponta- neous discourses between storytelling actions, as my goal was to compare Internet-mediated dis- course types.
In the two samples, I manually annotated the metapragmatic signals and used the above-men- tioned top-bottom method to establish the categories according to the basic function, which, although the study is qualitative, I have supplied percentages for the aim of comparison. I found a total of 497 metapragmatic markers in the PM corpus and 787 in the SH corpus. The text-by-word index of the two samples for metapragmatic signals is very close: 39.5 and 35.7. That is, in terms of their pro- portions, the two different types of Internet-mediated discourse testify to essentially nearly the same degree of metapragmatic awareness. In the following, I describe the distribution of meta- pragmatic signals according to their function and relevance.
5. Results
5.1. The classification of metapragmatic signals
In the two samples, I distinguished a total of eight large groups, essentially depending on which part of the process of common dynamic meaning construction the metapragmatic reflection refers to. I use examples from both samples to illustrate the different types.
I. Reflection on direct linguistic activity
1) Reflection on the speaker’s own direct linguistic activity
(1) Hali, én is mondok egyet. Nem annyira égő, inkább vicces.
‘Hey, I tell you another one. It is not so embarrassing, rather funny.’
(2) Hu, csak azért írok, mert az előbbi óvszeres sztorin enyhébb röhögőgörcsöt kaptam…
‘I am writing only because I burst into laughter from this condom story.’
(3) Inkább nem akarok beszélni róla
‘I would rather not talk about it.’
(4) De pont azért írtam le…
‘That is why I wrote it down.’
(5) Olvaslak titeket folyamatosan
‘I’ve followed your comments right from the beginning.’
The first four examples show the speaking activity of the speaker, which serves as a basic and typical starting point for linguistic activity (see the Bühler origins – I, here and now – as well). The verbs of saying are typical in this category, and in terms of the Internet, the speak, say, and write forms (as well as their other synonyms) are mixed. This kind of mixing is typical of Internet-mediated spontaneous writing: although language activity in topics is a written form, this type of text differs from the two prototypical discourse types, the spoken and the written forms, in its spontaneity, ie.
the written form shows a spontaneous nature realization, which is much more a feature of spoken language (cf. Tolcsvai Nagy 2008; Tátrai 2017). The participants of Internet discourses alternately place the focus on one or the other, so the verbal activity is partly reflected in the words of speaking and partly of writing (I did not examine the proportions and the context in this respect. the appearance of two solutions seems balanced at first). Just as it is also noticeable that these reflections may relate to the current linguistic activity (1, 2, 4), in this case they are basically realized with the first-
person verb form anchored in the present (I say, write, I want to speak) and may refer to the past, primarily for close-to-time, linguistic activity (3), apparently with anchoring in the past (I have described it). For example, (3) reflects, explains and clarifies the former’s own entry, thereby facilitating compre- hension and the recipients’s processing. (I do not analyze the relationship between present and past verbs in this article.)
Example (5) reflects on the linguistic activity of the potential recipient. This is quite rare in the samples and is much less profiled according to Internet discourses than speaking activity but not unprecedented: in this case it is always represented by the appropriate form of the verb read. Pre- sumably, the appearance of this metapragmatic signal in everyday spontaneous conversations is not significant either, but it cannot be ruled out (cf. I am listening, literary I am hearing; it is much more likely in more formal situations, for example in doctor-patient communication; cf. Kuna–
Hámori 2019), and is not expected to be used in storytelling.
2) Reflection on the recipient’s direct linguistic activity (6) Elmesélhetted volna…
‘You could have told me.’
(7) Ha nem írtok…
‘If you do not write’
(8) Hát gyere, és kiabálj
‘Then come and shout.’
(9) Ha elértetek idáig az olvasásban
‘If you have reached this point in reading’
Examples (6–8) construct reflections on the linguistic activity of the recipient in two ways. On the one hand, when the recipient is constructed as the earlier participant of the discourse, in this case the verb is anchored in the past (6, 7), and on the other hand, when the recipient appears as the future potential participant, the verb is in imperative mode and metapragmatic reflection is also realized as a speech act (8). Example (9) reflects on the linguistic activity of the recipient, this type of metapragmatic signal is also quite rare in Internet-mediated discourses.
In both cases, as in the previous type, it is clear that according to the nature of Internet-mediated discourses, both the choice of verbs corresponding to spoken language activities (narrate, shout) and the signals of linguistic activity characteristic of the written language vary (write, read), rela- tively balanced in proportion.
In the case of the above two types (reflections on speaker’s and recipients’s linguistic activi- ties), it should be noted that participants can reflect on direct linguistic activities in two additional forms: in the first person plural and with impersonal constructions, typically with noun forms.
(10) Eredetileg beszélgettünk, és normális hangnemben eszmét cseréltünk, néha vitatkoztunk.
‘Originally, we talked and exchanged ideas in a normal tone and sometimes we argued.’
(11) Érdemes rászánni 20 percet (ti. a történetek olvasására)
‘It is worth spending 20 minutes of your time on it (ie. reading stories)’
In (10), the participants are constructed as a group, in the example the anchor of the first-person plural verb appears as an exclusive plural (for the use of the exclusive plural, see Laczkó–Tátrai 2015b), thus the discursive activity for the participants is interpreted together, while in (11) the reflection takes place without numerical and personal anchoring, which can thus be interpreted primarily for the recipient’s activity, both for the recipients together and separately.
II. Reflection on the direction and function of attention 3) Reflections on the direction of the recipient’s attention
(12) Figyu, tanárok!
‘Listen, teachers!’
(13) Na akkor ezt figyeljétek!
‘Then watch this!’
These realizations serve to create and maintain the joint attentional scene, primarily with the appropriate forms of the verb of attention (listen). I could not get a first-person example (I am listening) that main- tains the speaker’s attention in the samples. In addition, reflections on directing attention and creating the joint attentional scene have appeared in relatively small numbers (typically in the second per- son plural according to the polylogical form and in the imperative mode), and this rare appearance is presumably a feature of Internet-mediated communication. Unlike every-day conversations, the participants do not appear in the same physical space and do not necessarily appear at the same time during the discourse, the web interface clearly indicates the boundaries of the utterances (the comments), there is no possibility to talk together, so there is no need for metapragmatic reflections to profile the creation or maintenance of the joint attentional scene. The above examples function much more as discourse markers, which obviously also contribute to the construction of the joint attentional scene, but create this function not in a foreground, but rather as a background element.
In (12), the shorten form of the verb listen which acts mainly as a particle used in the spoken language, appears (figyu), and the complete, anchored verb forms typically take a position of beginning.
III. Reflection on the participant’s mental activity
The signals of metapragmatic awareness may refer not only to the direct linguistic activity or the closely related attention control, but also to the mental activity and states of the participants in the joint attentional scene. Reflections on mental processes: understanding, knowledge, thinking, beliefs, mental states, emotions are also part of the process of dynamic meaning-construction. In Internet-mediated discourses, these reflections become particularly important, as the interface or- ganizes and clearly outlines the liguistic activity, as it has already been mentioned above: there is no possibility of co-discussion, overlaps, so there is no real need for participants to arrange meta- pragmatic cues, word transfer, change of turn, control and follow-up of attention, change of the roles, etc., but it is also obvious that because they do not share a common physical space, they have no sensory representations about each other during the discourse, so gestures and facial expressions do not help to express and percept their mental states. Consequently, there is no doubt that reflections on participants’ mental and emotional processes play a much greater role in Internet- mediated discourses than in everyday life and play a greater role than reflections on linguistic ac- tivity. The latter often appear as a discourse organizing schema, but reflections on mental and emotional states typically characterize and inform participants about their opinions, beliefs, knowledge, thinking, and so on. These reflections numerically far outnumber those of language activity in discourses (see numerical comparison later).
4) Reflection on the speaker’s mental activity (14) Azóta égek, ha rágondolok
‘If I am thinking about it, I cannot help to feel embarrassed.’
(15) Eszembe jutott erről még egy ‘I just remembered another one’
(16) Nem nagyon értem, mi a baj
‘I do not really understand what is the problem’
(17) Azon sem csodálkoznék ‘I would not be surprised if…’
(18) Nem tudom, hol láttam megfelelőt
‘I do not know where I saw a suitable one…’
(19) Azt hiszem, ideje lesz azt a könyvet beszerezni ‘I think it is time to get that book.’
(20) Szerintem ez nem igaz ‘In my opinion this is not true.’
Most of the metapragmatic signals in this category are also realized with verbs anchored in the first person, the so-called cognitive verbs, which are by far much more varied than the previous types: think, know, believe, wonder, understand, and so on. The discourse marker szerintem (’in my opinion’) also plays an important role, of which I classify interpersonal functioning (agreement, dis- agreement, image protection) among its various functions (cf. Dér 2021), including the opinion- marking function.
5) Reflection on the recipient’s mental activity
(21) Kitalálhatjátok, ki lépett ki az ajtón ‘Guess, who just left the room.’
(22) Tudtok már valamit?
‘Do you know something?’
(23) Ezt higgyétek el végre nekem!
‘Believe me if I say.’
(24) El tudjátok képzelni a hangulatot!
‘Can you imagine the atmosphere?’
(25) Nem tévedsz, jól gondolod…
‘You are not mistaken, You are right.’
(26) Szerintetek mi történt?
‘What do you think has happened?’
Reflections on the recipient’s mental activity are construed in a similar way to those on the speaker’s, with the difference that the cognitive verbs (guess, know, believe, imagine, mistake, think) that are dominant here are anchored in the second person plural, and the discourse marker szerintetek (in your opinion) is also in the second person plural. Their frequency is lower than in the above type.
Impersonal construal also appears in this main category (III.).
(27) Tudomásul kell venni, hogy a topik már nem tölti be az eredeti funkcióját.
‘It should be noted that the topic no longer fulfils its original function.’
(28) Felesleges agyalni, pontosan lehet tudni.
‘No need to think, one can exactly know.’
(29) Sajnos ebben az iskolában mindig a fiúk járnak rosszul.
‘Unfortunately in this school it is always the boys who come off badly.’
Note, think, know, and similar verbs occur in an infinitive form, mostly with a modal auxiliary verb, without a personal pronoun, thus creating the possibility that their relation can be generalized to each of the participants together or even separately. A similar situation is created by the use of evaluative attitude markers (unfortunately, fortunately), which, depending on the thematic context, may relate to the mental attitude of the speaker or the recipient.
IV. Reference to other discourses, quotations, self-citations: reflection on indirect linguistic activity (6) (30) egy ismerősöm mesélte ezt
‘An acquaintance of mine told me this’
(31) haverok mesélték a következő sztorit, szerintem nem igaz (őket ismerve), de nem is a lényeg ‘Friends told me the following story, I think it’s not true (knowing them), but that’s not the point.’
(32) na igen, pont ezeket mondja más is
‘Well yes, that’s exactly what others are saying’
(33) olvastam több helyen, hogy…
‘I read it in several places that…’
A special type of metapragmatic awareness is the case where the speaker does not refer to the discourse that is currently taking place, but to one that has already been said or described. It can be an utterance, a reflection, a thought, a belief of someone else, or a reflection on one’s own earlier utterance produced in a different context. It can be seen as a form of quotation in which, for example, the speaker typically reflects on the retelling of a story and at the same time the narrative activity of someone else. In the case of self-quotation, it is obvious that it is the linguistic activity of the former self of the speaker, which he or she uses primarily to support and emphasize his or her current message. It is common to name an external source, especially in the second sample, where the retelling signal is more strongly profiled when telling stories, and its reason is clearly because the thematically restricted topic asks for sharing of participants’ own experiences and is already thematized under its title (The Story of my Humiliation). (33) is an example of quoting someone else’s mental activity that he or she has experienced in some form before, or at least believes that he or she is aware of a third party’s beliefs.
V. Reflection on the development of the discourse
While types I–IV. of the metapragmatic reflections focus on the joint attentional scene, the next category refers to the referential scene, its organization, process, articulation, and is essentially deictic in nature. Of course, the metapragmatic reflections on the referential scene are closely re- lated to the direction of attention, the processes of common meaning construction and under- standing. Several subgroups are worth distinguishing.
7) Reflection that objectively constructs the discourse as a whole (34) Következzék az én történetem
’Let my story begin’
(35) A napokban történt meg velem.
‘It happened to me one of these days.’
(36) Az én egyik nagy égésem
‘It is one of my big embarrassments’
(37) Belefér egy ilyen is a témába ‘It may fit into the subject’
In the SH ample, reflections on the discourse as a whole thematize the story itself as a referencial scene, with a fairly high frequency and typically with the nouns story, humiliation, less often with other nouns (theme) or with the past tense form of the verb (happen) itself.
In the case of thematically unrestricted PM topic, this kind of thematization does not appear, the participants reflect on the discourse as a whole metonymically with the Internet genre (topic), which also means a reflection on the operation of the discourse.
(38) Azért azt tudd, hogy erről fog szólni a topik pár hónapig.
‘You should know that is what the topic will be about for a few months.’
(39) Bár az is tény, hogy erre csináltunk másik topikot.
‘Although it is a fact, we made a new topic for that.’
8) Reflection on certain parts of the discourse: thematization within the referential scene (40) a történet utóhatása
‘postlude of the story’
(41) slusszpoén
‘ultimate punchline’
(42) Ez a szemlélet okozta a problémát ‘This aspect caused the problem’
(43) Adalékok a műszaki analfabétizmusomhoz ‘Some data to my technical analphabetism’
(44) Köszönöm a tippeket ‘Thank you for the tips’
(45) Kérdés:
‘The question is…’
(46) Pró és kontra érvek
‘Pro and contra arguments’
This kind of metapragmatic reflection appears in large numbers in both samples, with a highly deictic character. Thematic nouns can be anaphorical or cataphorical. In the above examples, (42) and (44) are anaphorical, as they thematize earlier discourse parts, while the other examples, and this is more typical, cataphorically realized, they are followed by the thematic notation.
9) Reflection on the discourse as a metaphorical space: the role of the discourse deixis in the organization of the discourse
(47) Ez még fontos lesz a következőkben ‘This will be important in the following’
(48) De nem ez a lényeg ‘But that is not the point’
(49) Ez azt jelentette…
‘That meant…’
(50) Ennyit erről
‘So much about that’
(51) a régi oviban is így volt
‘so it was in the old kindergarten’
(52) ilyen marhaságot még nem hallottam ‘I have never heard such bullshit’
(53) erre másnap elkap engem is a nő ‘so the woman catches me the next day’
Reflections focused on this category are typically constructed with the front voweled pronoun ez (this) in independent use, with a smaller number of adverbs (thus, here) and adjectival pronoun ilyen (such), the latter mostly associated with nominals (52). Each pronoun form helps the orientation in discourse and exploits the DISCOURSE SPACE metaphor (cf. Laczkó 2019).
Demonstrative pronominal discourse deixis has a definite anaphorical or cataphorical direc- tion. The anaphorical use corresponding to mental processes clearly dominates in both samples (cf. Laczkó 2019: 257). In addition, there is a discourse marker-like function of the demonstrative pronoun when, as a result of desemantization, the signal of the direction and thus the contextual reference are pushed into the background and the function reflecting the organization of the dis- course comes to the foreground (53). And ennyi (’that much’) in a discourse deictic role is a charac- teristic final formula for storytelling (50).
It should also be mentioned that the pronoun ez (’this’) is often associated with nouns that do thematize the discourse (see the above category), for example: this story, this case, etc., i.e., these realizations are often combined with additional discourse-deictic elements. In (54), the function of the pronoun is to designate the part of the discourse where the speaker is currently present, both thematically connected with the thematic noun (point), and concerning the process of the discourse.
(54) Ezen a ponton szoktam le a pletykálkodásról ‘At this point I quit the habit of gossiping’
Of course, the discourse deictic use of the pronoun represents only one characteristic way to de- note the process and organization of the discourse. Other, rarer realizations also occur.
(55) A barátom mesélte következő sztorit ‘My friend told me the following story’
(56) Oké, legyenek katonasztorik, az első:
‘Fine, let there be soldier’s stories, here’s the first one’
In (55) the adjective next appearing before the thematic noun story has a cataphorical direction, in (56) this role is played by the adjective form first.
10) Discourse markers
(57) Szoval par honappal ezelott Perthben (Ausztralia) tanultam es akkoriban probalgattam angolul beszelni… mar amennyire.
‘So I studied in Perth, Australia a couple of months ago and at the time I was trying to speak English as much as I could.’
(58) Nos, ott vagyunk, nem rohanunk, videozgattunk kicsit stb.
‘Well, we’re there, we’re not in a hurry, we’ve been watching videos a little, etc.’
(59) Na, akkora már eléggé döglődtünk, de még volt pénzmag.
‘Well, we were dead enough, but we still had money.’
(60) Akkor leesett a dolog, sűrű bocsánatkérés... Hát égett a fejem.
‘Then the penny dropped, apologies…. Well, my head was burning.’
(61) A doktornő a legkisebb betegségre is vagy háromféle gyógyszert felírt. Nomármost, az én influenzámra is kaptunk egy csomót.
‘The doctress always prescribed at least three types of medicine for even the slightest illness. Well, we got a lot for my flu, too.’
Various schematic, desemantized discourse markers are also part of the metapragmatic aware- ness, as they play a significant role in marking the organization of discourses: they segment the parts, connect the adjacent parts of the discourse, so they also play an important role in directing attention. For example: nos, na, namost, szóval, mondjuk, hát, ugye, etc. (all roughly meaning ‘well’).
Thus, in the case of discourse markers, neither the degree nor the complexity of language development is high, according to their desemanticization, and the function of the discourse markers themselves is very diverse (cf. eg. Furkó 2020; Dér 2020) but their metapragmatic role is indisputable in the construction of the referencial scenes. In the case of the above examples, they take part in the organization of the discourses, in their breakdown into sequences, typically in the opening po- sition, their function is mostly to summarize or pass on the preceeding part of the discourse, to perform a thematic change, to indicate a thematic turnoff or a return to the main thematic unit. In the case of example (60), hát introduces the deduction of the consequence from the story, reflecting on the mental state of the speaker at that time, while in example (61) the role of namármost is the sequence change, returning from the representation of the doctress’s characterization to the course of the events. However, the following example shows that the discourse marker reflects on the propo- sitional content of a statement created by another, while questioning the constructed statement.
(62) Hááát, erősen helye válogatja...
‘Weeeeeeeeell, it strongly depends on the place…’
The antecedent in this case was the utterance that “otherwise I don’t understand the school, in this case they usually give the mark 5 for the skill subjects” and this utterance was questioned in response by one of the participants with the above form of hát, which arranges the discourse sequentially appearing in the first part of the utterance.
11) Emotional reflection on the referential scenes (63) Webshop szerint:
ÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁÁ. Szörnyű.
‘According to the webshop: http://www.sootersfoto.hu/fotosarkos-/-bereagasztos Aaaaaaaaaaaa, it is horrible.’
(64) úú :-( mennyi idős a mosógéped és milyen?
‘Uu :-( how old is your washing machine and what is it like?’
This type includes short onomatopoetic words whose function is to express a negative or positive emotional reaction, irony, self-irony in relation to the referencial scene or any part of it, for example:
hujuj, hm, áááááááá, háááááát, upsz, basszus, ajaj, huh. This kind of reaction may refer to the referen- cial scene constructed by oneself or others, a part of it, showing relatively balanced realizations in the PM corpus, as this pattern represents the most informal form of spontaneous writing, and SH is clearly dominated by emotional reflections on its own discourse of the participants, according to storytelling.
Example (63) shows a metapragmatic reflection on the speaker’s own part of the discourse in this category, (64) shows one on a part created by another. In (63), the commenter shows a web page as a link, then gives a strongly negative reaction to it with a basically onomatopoetic element, also explaining her opinion with the adjective horrible. In (64), the utterance refers to an earlier part of the discourse, also as a negative emotional reaction to the state of the washing machine. In many
cases, the referential emotional expression of a given utterance is associated with the expression of a speech act, such as the expression of regret. An example of this is (64), in addition:
(65) Jaj, bokor, nem tudom, de gyors jobbulást!
‘Ouch, bokor, I don’t know, but get well soon!’
Example (65) expresses a reaction to the fact of a disease.
VI. Reflection on the way of the language use formulation (12) (66) Röviden
‘In short’
(67) A dobást szó szerint kell érteni ‘throwing should be taken literally’
(68) Általában nem szoktam csúnyán beszélni ‘I don’t usually talk ugly’
(69) Nem kell részleteznem ‘I don’t have to go into details’
(70) Itt nem lehet érzékeltetni a hangsúlyt.
‘Here it is impossible to express the tones.’
These metapragmatic reflections refer to the way of language formation and the use of the lan- guage (cf. Hámori 2012), mainly in connection with the speaker’s own linguistic activity (66, 68–70), but may also be related to this aspect of the recipient’s understanding, such as (67), in which the meaning of the word throw is (literally) explained by the utterer in such a way as to give priority to the language activity of the recipient using the verb ért (’understand’) in an impersonal auxiliary verb construction, that is to say, generalized to everyone. The degree of elaboration of the reflec- tions on linguistic formality can be characteristically different, from structures anchored in number and in person with a verb (I don't usually talk ugly; I don't have to go into detail), through impersonal constructions (emphasis cannot be placed; it is to be taken literally) to elliptical patterns (in short).
VII. Reflection on the vehicle (13) (71) Mire ideértem…
‘By the time I got here’
(72) Nem akarok odanézni
‘I don’t want to look at it [ie. at a photo on the site]’
(73) Nohát, nincs itt senki?
‘Well, isn’t there anyone here?’
(74) Csomagolom a topikot a kedvencek közé ‘I’m packing the topic into my favourites’
(75) Ez a topik tényleg király, bár egy kicsit elkezdett süllyedni, de nem baj, felhozzuk.
‘This topic is really great, although it is already starting to sink a little bit, it is okey, we will bring it up.’
Reflections on the field of linguistic activity are presumably more characteristic in the Internet-me- diated discourse than in offline conversations or storytelling events. Due to their positions, partici- pants often reflect on the virtual space as a part of metapragmatic awareness.
In the case of (71) and (72), the symbolic space deixis constructed by the prefix (here, there) reflects the virtual space, and the verb (arrive) expresses involvement in the discourse, at a given time it expresses that the participant is present, and the verb look there refers to an image displayed on the Internet interface. (73) represents the possibility of the pronominal space deixis in Internet- mediated discourses, the non-determinative demonstrative pronoun (itt ’here’) clearly denotes the virtual space, and the utterance is used to ask whether no one of the participants is present in the discourse at that moment (as has already been mentioned, participants do not have a visual representation of each other, and the process of discourse does not allow participants to engage in conversation at the same time, so this issue has real relevance, not merely a conversation-building element). These examples (71–73) differ from the discourse deictic ones marked as type 9 above in that they clearly prioritize the virtual space, i.e., they are symbolic space deictic elements, and do not profile the content reference concerning the discourse.
Examples (74) and (75) objectify the space of the speech event (topics), in (74) the metaphori- cally used verb pack expresses that the utterer archives the entire discourse as a link on his or her computer under the Favorites label for easy access, in (75) the verb sink means that the various labeled links to discourses are placed one below the other on the screen, with those in which active language activity takes place always appearing at the top. So if a discourse link goes down, it means that there has been no discourse activity in it, but if someone creates a new post, the link will be at the top of the page (cf. we will bring it up). The latter two examples also strongly overlap with type 7 above, but as long as the reflection on the whole of the discourse is profiled there, here the virtual space comes to the foreground metonymically when we examine the starting point of the observer scene.
VIII. Speech acts (14) (76) Drukkolok neked ‘I am cheering for You’
(77) Szeretnék egy kis drukkot kérni ‘I’d like to ask for some cheer’
(78) Köszönöm, hogy gazdagítjátok a topikot ‘Thank You for enriching the topic’
(79) Éppen kérni akartam egy linket
‘I just wanted to ask You to get the link’
(80) Lefogadom, hogy ‘I bet that…’
Speech acts are communicative actions originating from the utterances. These are essentially construc- tions that are realized through linguistic activity by being pronounced or named by the speaker (Austin 1962). There are two types of grouping: according to the type of communicative actions (cf. assertives, commissives, expressives, directives, declarations) and according to sentence types (cf. Tátrai 2017: 1014–9). The overlap with metapragmatic awareness is worth examining on the basis of the first grouping, among other things, according to the extent to which these realiza- tions have become conventionalized and developed. Based on the latter, there are direct speech acts that, due to their conventional nature, can be considered more typical than indirect speech acts, in which the understanding of the action value of the utterance is related to the mobilization of contextual background knowledge, the latter category includes sentence word elements that are realized as unstructured sentences (see also Type 11). In the type grouping of metapragmatic sig- nals, I primarily classified performativities into this category, i.e., those realizations that are formed by a performative verb and can be considered as partially conventionalized expressions. It should be
noted that in type 1, the metapragmatic signals constructed with the verb in first person singular, are also performative, creating assumptions, but I treat them as a separate type in this categorization.
Examples (76) and (77) show a kind of traditional discursive practice of the PM topic: if a participant or a relative is in a situation that has posed a challenge and requires a solution (e.g., job interview, exam, medical examination), then the other participants expressed their sympathy, support with so-called cheering. The use of this speech act has become almost ceremonial in this speech community. Many times this discursive action appears only with the noun drukk (cheer) alone, with- out anchoring. In the SH sample, of course, there is no data on this realization, as the PM sample, the spontaneous internet conversation, clearly contains additional performative expressions in pro- file: in (78) for example the expressive act of thanksgiving, in (79) the act of request, in (80) an unreal commutative representation of betting.
5.2. The complexity of metapragmatic awareness
After counting the types, it is important to mention the issue of complexity as well. It can be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, it can be interpreted in terms of the degree of semantic elaboration of metapragmatic reflections. The more elaborated, the more complex the representation can be considered. On the other hand, the type of metapragmatic reflections that appear together in a given utterance may also be an important aspect of analysis. I refer to both aspects briefly below, as in both cases further detailed analysis will be needed in addition to the generalizations.
Graduality presupposes scalarity, and it can be declared that metapragmatic reflections in the form of personal deixis or situational anchoring represent the most semantically elaborated pole (such as the utterance with the verbs of saying and the cognitive verb in first or second person), the less elaborated ones are the desemantized schematic discourse markers as well as the sen- tence word realizations. Metapragmatic reflections which are not anchored with personal deixis and the demonstrative prono discourse deixis show an intermediate degree. I highlight three typical examples, all three from the SH sample (cf. Laczkó–Tátrai 2015):
(81) Itt az ideje, hogy én is gazdagítsam ezt a fórumot egy beégéssel, ami nem az enyém, ezt a sztorit a barátom mesélte el nekem.
‘It’s time for me to enrich this forum with a humiliation story that isn’t mine, my friend told me this story.’
(82) Logikus, nem?
‘It makes sense, doesn’t it?’
(83) A doktornő a legkisebb betegségre is vagy háromféle gyógyszert felírt. Nomármost, az én influenzámra is kaptunk egy csomót.
‘The doctress always prescribed at least three types of medicament for even the slightest illness. Well, we got a lot for my flu, too.’
In example (81), the narrator’s storytelling activity is anchored due to the personal pronoun and the inflexional morphemes, the enrich forum structure makes the storytelling activity explicit. In this way the storyteller objects to his own linguistic activity within himself, making it part of the referencial scene. Thus, the referencial scene consists not only of the story (the observed scene) but also of a meta-level (the observer scene), which is represented as an elementary sentence separated from the elementary sentences depicting the narrated events (see Tátrai 2011: 121; cf. Langacker 2002).
In addition, from the joint attentional scene, the story itself is objectified by the expressions humilia- tion and story, and the speaker explores the space of the speech act (this forum) by means of dis- course deixis and reflects on the story being retold, makes explicit from whom the story originated and emphasizes it with the help of an anchored personal deictic expression in negative form that this is not his or her own experience (not mine). If we take only the reflections of metapragmatic awareness, we can not only talk about a high degree of semantic elaboration but we can say that
also the reflection is complex as in addition to storytelling, there is a reference to the discourse, reflection on the discourse as a whole and the utterance reflects on the cited form of the story.
Example (82) is also complex in this respect, as it reflects on the referencial scene itself (ellip- tically) as well as the mental activity of the recipient (logical). However, it is not anchored by per- sonal deixis, only the anchoring role of the present tense indicates the metapragmatic function (stories are typically anchored in the past). Thus, it can be considered a semantically less elaborate realization, but the utterance objectifies the observer scene here as well.
Example (83) contains a clear discourse marker, neither the degree of elaboration (deseman- tized element) nor its complexity is high, its role is to change the sequence in the representation of the doctress’s trait in the process of the events (see also above).
Similarly complex examples from the PM sample:
(84) azért ez nem ilyen eccerü volt, tényleg nincs antennád a finom árnyalatokra...
‘so it wasn’t so simple, you really don't have an antenna for subtle shades...’
(85) H_G, ha már itt vagy, megkérdeznélek erről:
http://reflexshop.hu/aerobie-aeropress-kavefozo?keyword=aero%20press.
nagy hülyeség?
'H_G, if You are here, I’d ask about this:
http://reflexshop.hu/aerobie-aeropress- kavefozo?keyword=aero%20press.
big nonsense?’
(86) lehet, tudomasul kell venni, hogy a topik mar nem tolti be az eredeti funkciojat, kifujt ‘it may be necessary to note that the topic is no longer in its original function, it has run
out of steam’
(87) Mire ide jutottam, aktualitását vesztette a drukk, de azért remélem, sikerültek a vizsgák!
‘By the time I got here, the cheer had lost its relevance, but I hope the exams were successful!’
(88) Azta, hogy sikerült leírnom ilyen szépen, hogy ínhüvelygyulladás? És ez már a javított ver- zió volt, mert eredetileg úgy nézett ki, hogy ínüvelyyulladás.
‘Wow, how did I manage to describe so nicely [the word] ínhüvelygyulladás [‘tendonitis’]?
And it was already an improved version because it originally looked like ínüvelyyulladás.’
In (84), the speaker reflects on the previous part of the discourse, the utterance is addressed to a specific recipient, the demonstrative pronoun ez (’this’) functioning as discourse deixis refers back to the previous part of the discourse, and the lack of an antenna reflects on the attentional, interpre- tational action of the recipient. (85) also shows more complex metapragmatic awareness: after the specific address, the vehicle is reflected on by the speaker referring to the presence of the partici- pants, then the speech activity is subjected to metapragmatic reflection with a cataphorical dis- course deixis, and after the link there is an anaphorically construed reflection on the theme included in the link. (86) refers to the discourse itself with the notation of topic and focuses on the function of the discourse, its altered role and destruction, and the impersonal auxiliary verb structure (it may be necessary to note) should be extended to all participants and generalized to the mental activity of the recipient. In connection with the exam in (87), the reflection of the speaker refers to the space of the discourse, metaphorically constructing the space (by the time I got here), thereby ob- jectifying the speaker’s action related to its own linguistic activity. The speech act of cheering appears, more precisely the participant indicates its unnecessariness, and he makes his own mental activity objectively explicit (I hope). Finally, (88) shows a reflection on the formal way of writing. The full utterance refers to an inappropriate description of one of the words previously recorded, the utterance refers back to the previous utterance activity with a first-person verb, and explains the process of spoiling the description, also strongly objectifying the observer scene.
6. Comparison of the two samples according to the function of different types
In order to see the proportions of the types of metapragmatic signals in the two samples, I tabulated the percentage data. All indications in each sample represent 100 percent, and the numbers in the table show the percentages in each case. In what follows, I focus on the most characteristic proportions.
Table 1. Percentages of metapragmatic signals in the two samples
Types Sample SH
(787 = 100%) Sample PM (497 = 100%) 1. Reflections ont he speaker’s own linguistic activity 6 7 2. Reflections on the recipient’s linguistic activity 2 3 3. Reflections on the direction of the recipients’s attention 2 3 4. Reflections ont he speaker’s mental activity 15 20 5. Reflections on the recipient’s mental activity 5 4
6. Reflections on indirect linguistic activity 4 5
7. Refelctions ont he discourse as a whole 16 1
8. Reflections on a certain part of the discourse 5 6
9. Discourse deixis 11 5
10. Discourse markers 22 13
11. Emotional reflections on the referential scene 2 2
12. Reflections on language use 4 2
13. Reflections on the vehicle 3 8
14. Speech acts 3 21
It can be seen from the table that all types appear in both samples, and these data are highly cor- related with the types found in Kuna–Hámori’s physician-patient interactions (Kuna–Hámori 2019).
From this fact it can be concluded that metapragmatic reflections include basic types and patterns that are independent of the genre and the vehicle, and, of course, some that are more related to characteristic discourse types and discourse communities.
In Internet-mediated storytelling (SH sample), we find four types that stand out in proportion:
discourse markers (22%), reflection on discourse as a whole (16%), reflections on the mental ac- tivity of the speaker (15%), and discourse as space (11%). The other types appear in a roughly balanced proportions. Presumably, these proportions show a kind of correlation for the metaprag- matic signals of everyday storytelling, especially for types 7 and 10, and this is also a pattern for Internet-mediated narratives. In narrative discourses, the metapragmatic construction of the referen- cial scene is basically constructed with discourse deixis and discourse markers. Attention is fo- cused on the story itself, the role of the desemantized elements is a kind of discursive segmenta- tion of the referencial scene, the marking of the thematically connected parts, the marking of the changes of subject, and they obviously play an important role in the direction of attention as well.
However, the higher proportion of types 4 and 9 can already be explained by the vehicle. Reflections on discourse as a space typically function at the beginning of the stories as a kind of introduction, linked to other kinds of reflections, such as the act of storytelling. This introductory metapragmatic element plays an important role in online storytelling. The dominantly appearing reflections are tied to the referencial scene, according to the discursive nature of storytelling. However, the following type is related to the joint attentional scene: the strong appearance of reflections on the speaker’s mental activity is presumably connected to the Internet transmission, and not only in storytelling, but also in other genres, as there is no direct, real-space connection between participants, so be- liefs, thoughts, etc. should be made more explicit.
There are three prominent types of spontaneous online conversations: speech acts (21%), reflec- tions on the mental activity of the speaker (20%), and discourse markers (13%). It can also be seen that here the main metapragmatic reflections are tied to the joint attentional scene, and it is only the discourse markers that ensure the organization of the referencial scene. This proportional ex- change between the referencial scene and the joint attentional scene is not surprising, but rather
a genre feature, thus it conforms to the preliminary expectations. The remarkably large number of speech acts seems much more surprising. However, all this is related to the specific nature and situation of the PM sample. In 2013, after nearly 10 years of daily conversation, participants began using the Facebook community portal instead of the PM topic. During this period, participants al- ready knew each other well, factions developed, conflicts arose, and in fact they didn’t have much to say to each other on the open surface of the topic. As one of the participants remarked: “The groups have a dynamics, it’s just going downhill right now. There are many reasons for this, includ- ing the fact that after so much time, conflicts are inevitable for so many different people (although sometimes a little exaggerated – I think), it is also that we are much more busy than we were years ago when our Index career started, all over at the end of the year. And yes, there is also the fact that the focus has inevitably shifted to Fb.” As a result, the conversation was constructed according to the following scheme: someone asked a question, asked for advice, and the others tried to respond to something. The topic emptied thematically, and participants began to use it primarily to write or print birthday or nameday greetings for each other in a given situation (this became almost a cere- mony and on request, “topic cheering” became a kind of concept in this medium. All this explains why the role of speech acts in discourse has become prominent. In the PM sample, 8% of the reflec- tions on the vehicle are also related to this phenomenon (see also the quote above): participants themselves often debated the function and the process of the topic. Obviously, it would be worth- while to have an analysis of metapragmatic signals that compares the initial, substantive, and final, vacant stages of the discourse.
Thus, comparing the two samples with the highest proportion of metapragmatic signals, it can be seen that the SH sample shows a large number of realizations according to the genre, rather in the reflections on the referencial scene and the PM sample on the joint attentionial scene. However, two types are common: discourse markers and reflections on the mental activity of the speakers.
Desemantized discourse markers presumably play a very important role in the organization of a wide variety of discourses, regardless of genre, in different proportions. However, the high number of reflections on the mental activity of the speaker is presumably a feature of Internet-mediated discourses. As I mentioned above, it becomes extremely important for fundamentally unknown and invisible participants to explicitly account for their beliefs, thoughts, and so on. It is also important to note that among these metapragmatic reflections, there are some that become desemantized and they can be considered discourse markers, for example: I think, or for the recipient: you know.
7. Conclusion
The aim of the study was to detect types of metapragmatic signals in samples of two Internet- mediated genres, spontaneous written conversation and narrative storytelling, and to compare their proportions. The results of the comparison did not fully support the preliminary assumptions.
Metapragmatic signals are clearly present in high numbers in both samples, so they can be con- sidered as relevant genre-specific features, but with no characteristic differences in their elabora- tion. Both discourses contain linguistically elaborated examples as well as fully desamantized reali- zations, with transitions between the two that can be understood as a continuum. However, the patterns of metapragmatic signals in the narrative and conversational genres also differ greatly. In storytelling, these signals appear mostly at the beginning of the story, reflecting on the joint atten- tional scene as a kind of contextualizing element, and the large number of reflections referring to the referencial scene are mostly discourse markers and discourse deixis that organize storytelling.
We can say that metapragmatic signals appear as background elements in storytelling. In contrast, in the spontaneous conversation, they are much more in the foreground, they constantly play a role at every point of the conversation, they organize the conversation. Reflections on the linguistic and mental activity of the speaker or recipient have a more dominant function, as this type of Internet- mediated conversation is highly organised according to conversational patterns, along group dy- namics and participant roles.
Acknowledgements
The study is made with the support of the NKFIH 129040 (Verbal constructions in the Hungarian. A usage- based construction grammar research),and was implemented with the support provided by the Ministry of Innovation and Technology of Hungary from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, financed under the ELTE TKP2020-IKA-06 funding scheme.
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